


Black Silent Waters

by kromi



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, canon-divergent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 03:32:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5990386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kromi/pseuds/kromi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How two people used as weapons learned to let go of duty and purpose and give in to distractions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black Silent Waters

**Author's Note:**

> This particular story has probably been written a thousand times already, but it's my take on these two and what might have happened before and after the movie anyway. This was written before I learned about some things that were in the novelization, especially re: Hux fetching Kylo Ren from the dying Starkiller. I decided to leave it as it was since changing it would have messed with rest of the fic completely.
> 
> Hopefully you'll enjoy this monster of a rather pointless novella. I set out to writing smut; instead I wrote thrushes. (And no smut).

Hux remembered the first time Kylo Ren arrived to the Starkiller Base, during the weapon's construction when everything was already in disarray and he had his hands full at trying to keep the base running. He oversaw the First Order information network that provided them with steady data on New Republic and resistance movements, he kept track of supply lines; he saw to it that the engineers stayed on schedule, he assigned shifts for the personnel, he filed requisitions and he was up to his elbows in misconduct reports because the soldiers assigned to the base got into all things stupid out of sheer boredom of just watching over construction workers or patrolling the icy, lifeless wastes above the base and around the structures carved into the planet's surface.

He was in charge, the highest ranked officer in the base and appointed by the Supreme Leader himself, and he was proud of the assignment, swelling with admittedly rather self-flagellated pride every time a piece of a structure – were it one of the stellar collector arrays, something in the containment field or the cylinder that penetrated the planet all the way into its core – fell into place or engineers reported nominal readings from the thermal oscillator tests and he was itching to see what it all would be capable of. Of course it read perfect on paper and he trusted the science and the engineers and technicians who ran tests and simulations day by day basis, adjusting to changes or miscalculations as required, and he knew the Starkiller Base would make the Galactic Empire's weaponized mobile planets like Death Stars look nothing but toys. Despite it all he still missed being onboard and in command of the _Finalizer_ : he felt more at home in space than he did planetside. For some unfathomable reason the hull of a giant _Resurgent_ class Star Destroyer and the vast nothingness of space under his feet felt more stable than the planet he was standing on, what with them drilling deep into the crust to install the weapon and the parts it needed to function as intended. The groundquakes caused by the construction work made him anxious each time although none had ever measured more than a meager six on the Richter scale and the weapon itself, he was told, would cause the entire planet tremble in painful throes when fired. Despite the engineers telling him that the structures were already built to withstand and dampen the enormous power of the unleashed weapon (which held enough power to tear the planet itself apart: hence the need for the containment field and thermal oscillator in the first place, since the planet's own magnetic field was not enough to hold the quintessence delivered by the collector arrays inside the core without the planet collapsing onto itself) and no earthquake could measure up to that, he couldn't help the ominous feeling he got every time he felt the corridors of the base shift under his feet, miles away from the epicenter likely located somewhere deep within the planet near the containment field or along the cylinder.

The Starkiller Base might have been his life's work at that point, and reading reports and discussing with engineers about some construction detail or another even if he would have to point them towards science division because he couldn't be at several places at once even if he would have wanted to was something he delighted in. He would have enjoyed the weekly check-ups on the construction sites, and marveled at them at peace, admiring what they were accomplishing here, miles and miles away from the main base, if only the planet wasn't so infernally cold with snow covering most of the forested landscape and icy winds whipping angrily at whatever dared stand out. He understood why this planet for the Starkiller: it was suitably small to propel through space once the nearest star was sucked dry, it hovered around in small, deserted systems deep in the Unknown Regions far from charted worlds or anything even barely livable and no one would come looking there even by accident, but it didn't stop him from hating the climate.

So the Supreme Leader's apprentice, a dark lord in training, whose sheer name would rouse the entire base's military strength from its science-dulled apathy and make the hallways echo with curious and occasionally even scared little whispers was about the last thing Hux needed. What was he to do, though? The Supreme Leader had given him two days' notice, informing him via the gigantic holoprojector installed in the base just so they could easily confer with the highest of the First Order command structure, that his apprentice Kylo Ren was to arrive at the Starkiller Base in two days and General Hux would do well to make sure he had suitable quarters ready for the young apprentice's accommodation and he was received with respect appropriate of a dark lord striving to follow in his famous grandfather's footsteps.

None of that was enough to warrant instant animosity from Hux, until the Supreme Leader graciously informed him, with that somewhat twisted, see-through, barely-a-smile of his, that during Kylo Ren's stay at Starkiller base his agenda would trump whatever the First Order military was doing and he would outrank Hux in several matters they would discuss later if Hux so wished. In essence they would share the leadership of the base during Kylo Ren's stay. That had made the corner of Hux's eye twitch: Kylo Ren, while a dark lord and the Supreme Leader's apprentice, was outside the First Order's command structure, had no official military training or even a rank, and Hux would not tolerate some _brat_ running the place in his stead when he wasn't even sure if he had the military's best interests at heart. The Supreme Leader, despite being _de facto_ leader of the First Order definitely had his own agendas, like all Sith Lords and Emperors of old he owed his entire existence and position in the First Order to, and Hux was certain that those agendas did not always meet with what was the best course of action military-wise. He had had enough training and exceptional experience from very young age to know that. He hadn't been made a General around the age of thirty for nothing. He was certain the Ren brat would attempt to take over military command and communications with their fleet and agents scattered across the galaxy – one of the many things Hux particularly enjoyed about his assignment – and disrupt their operations and use them for his own gain, whatever that happened to be. Politics Hux could do, military tactics he shined at, inspiring and patriotic he could act to keep up the morale: he wasn't going to let some _apprentice_ take any of that away from him and leave him solely in charge of the Starkiller's finalized construction and the engineering or science side of things.

Hux scoffed loudly after exiting the holoprojector room, shrugging his greatcoat on his shoulders. Striving was one thing but actually being worthy of the legacy of Darth Vader were two completely different things and Hux would not give this mere apprentice any special treatment until he saw what he was truly capable of. He knew about the Knights of Ren and the massacre of the existing Jedi trained by Luke Skywalker and that Kylo Ren had been the main perpetrator, betraying his former master and wiping the slowly reforming Jedi Order from history once again in one fell swoop. That, and he was the son of Princess Leia Organa of late Alderaan and the smuggler Han Solo who had fought with rebels to bring down the Galactic Empire some thirty years ago, and also the grandson of Darth Vader, the last great Sith Lord. He had never met the man before, only seen the impressive track record of his heritage, heard of the absolute prohibition of the use of his birth name, and heard the praise his Supreme Leader sang about his precious apprentice.

So Kylo Ren arrived two days later in his _Upsilon_ -class command shuttle, having been fetched by the _Finalizer_ from whatever distant rock the Supreme Leader kept as his base of operations at the time, and Hux did not know what to expect, having moved troops in ceremonial attire to the hangar as instructed to receive the heir apparent of Darth Vader's legacy. The man striding poised down the shuttle's lowered ramp was tall and slim, dressed in all black and wearing a mask under a tattered hood, carrying a small metal lockbox under one arm, and with callous self-assuredness ignored the troops saluting him as he strode his way out of the shuttle bay and inside the base, the layers of black robe flowing behind him and the hilt of a lightsaber dangling from his left hip. Without even trying to hide the scowl on his face, Hux followed the man, leaving the welcoming troops confused and chattering quietly in the hangar and trusted some lieutenant would bring them back in line.

Kylo Ren was heading straight towards the main command center despite having never been to the Starkiller Base before, and halfway there he finally spun around, almost looking ready to bounce and stab as he faced Hux, who had been quietly following him. Hux had waited for him to get lost in the vast base and its maze of corridors and hyperlifts, and stoop low enough to stop and ask for directions like a normal person. Hux stopped on his tracks as well and regarded the man with a particularly impartial look, icy like the planet around them, somewhat annoyed by the mask the brat hid behind. Thankfully Hux was well-rehearsed in letting his feelings from showing on his face and the mask he wore was less of an actual thing made of metal and more of a metaphor and still just as if not more effective for hiding behind.

"Who are you?" Kylo Ren asked – demanded, rather, his voice controlled and modulated into mechanical balance by the mask's vocoder, making the man near impossible to read aside from his body language: wired shoulders pushed forward, defensive stance: attentive, clearly irritated, frustrated, maybe actually a tiny bit lost. Hux wondered if he wore the mask from need or to hide some horrific deformities like his late grandfather or was it just simply one of those dark lord things to inspire faceless fear.

Hux bowed his head a little, not forgetting his manners no matter how much he did not like this man who interfered with everything he had going, and managed to sound at least appropriately derisive when he replied. "General Hux. I'm in charge of the Starkiller."

Kylo Ren looked at him for a while in complete silence and the cursed mask was making Hux more annoyed the more time passed, especially when the wired shoulders relaxed and Kylo Ren pulled himself back up to full height: an inch and a half taller than Hux, maybe, but still somehow managing to look a lot taller and definitely more imposing in his hood and mask and flowing rough-spun robes. "Not anymore," Kylo Ren then said and whirled around, his robes twisting around his long legs, before he started moving down the corridor again. "Show me to my quarters."

Hux had to grit his teeth not to let his anger take better of him: he knew that no matter how annoying this brat was, he was still a proficient user of the Force, and Hux did not wish to experience first-hand what Kylo Ren could do with his abilities when pushed hard enough. He had never experienced a Force chokehold and he had a feeling he would not particularly enjoy it. "Of course," he replied, managing to inject some derisiveness into the words while still staying properly polite, and picked up his pace to reach Kylo Ren already striding far ahead with his longer legs and making no effort to actually let Hux take the lead and show him to his quarters like he had asked. What a complete self-absorbed asshole.

Much to his glee Hux had to call Kylo Ren back when he strode right past the room provided for him: one of the senior officers had had to take the bullet and move out to accommodate the dark lord, and his moderately sized quarters were cleaned up and devoid of any personal belongings: just bare minimum furnishings, bare steel-gray walls. Kylo Ren turned on his heels and if the mask hid embarrassment, it was impossible to tell, but imagining it made Hux feel instantly a tiny bit better. The door was calibrated to recognize the room's new inhabitant so that it would not open to just anyone (anyone could get inside by inputting the correct access code into the panel next to the door, though, and Hux already had the code committed to memory), and it swooshed quietly open as Kylo Ren approached and slid shut just as quickly when the man was inside, and Hux was left alone, seething in the hallway, without not even as much as a thank-you from the infuriating brat of a dark lord.

 

***

 

Just as Hux had assumed Kylo Ren immediately took over the vast network of agents and spies working for the First Order and Hux ended up gritting his teeth again when he contacted one of his agents who was scouting resistance movements elsewhere in Unknown Regions and only received a somewhat sheepish and apologetic reply that Kylo Ren had assigned him a different task and he was already on Jakku.

_Jakku?!_

"Report back to me the moment your assignment is complete," Hux almost hissed at the holocomm.

"It is classified, sir: I am supposed to report back to Lord Ren and Lord Ren only," was the man's just-as-sheepish reply, and Hux almost saw red.

"Do I need to remind you that I _am_ your commanding officer," he said, each word ice.

"I, uh," the man stuttered, wringing his hands nervously and stepping from side to side, obviously torn by whom exactly did he answer to in matters like these. Apparently Kylo Ren and his presumed ability to Force-choke people through holocommunications won by a lightyear. "I can't, sir. I apologize. I will ask Lord Ren if it's possible to share my report with you after I am done."

"No need," Hux replied icily, already having decided he was going to have words with Kylo Ren and tell him he had no right to override his authority in these matters. He had to know what their agents were being used for, nothing could be that secret as long as it was First Order business, and whatever the Supreme Leader was up to _was_ , in the end, First Order, and therefore Hux's business as well.

"I will of course return to my previous post and carry out the rest of my assignment as per your instructions, sir," the man added hastily, still nervous, and Hux cut the connection without as much as a word. That had to be a scare enough for the poor man. He immediately made a perfect about-face and quite dramatically marched away from the command center in search of the irritating dark lord who dared challenge his authority in matters like these.

He found Kylo Ren in his quarters, sitting on his bed cross-legged, almost like meditating, and the look on his face was less surprise and more personal affront when Hux entered after having inserted the door keycode, not even bothering a courtesy knock. Hux had a feeling Kylo Ren would know he was coming, what with the Force and sensing things regular people did not. And, yes, face: he wasn't wearing the mask this time, apparently having assumed no one would bother him, and Hux was not prepared at all for what was hidden behind the mask. In essence, Kylo Ren was a rather normal if strangely fascinating-looking young man: looked actually younger than he probably was, which had to be around thirty: Hux had no official records on Kylo Ren because those did not exist since Kylo Ren was not part of the First Order military (and if any records existed those were for the sole usage of the Supreme Leader and even Hux didn't have clearance for them), so his guess was as good as any, _'between the fall of the Galactic Empire and now'_. There were no deformities of any sort, just an irritatingly out of regulation wild mane of curly, shoulder length hair framing his face, very pale skin dotted with small blemishes, a nose maybe a bit too large to his face and large dark deer-like eyes, now narrowed slightly as he attempted to stare down the intruder to his quarters.

Wearing the mask made sense now: even more so than it would have were it there to cover deformities or some sort of vain shame like self-perceived ugliness. Without the mask Kylo Ren looked almost young enough to be difficult to be taken seriously, and there was a childlike, almost innocent quality to his features. He fought to remember what exactly had the Supreme Leader once said, _he is the perfect focal point between light and dark, much like his grandfather_.

Speaking of his late grandfather, Hux thought he recognized the weirdly misshapen helmet or skull-like object set on one of the drawers in the dim-lit quarters. _Holy shit, creepy as heck._ He now knew what the lockbox had been. He could see no other personal touches to the quarters: they were just as empty, just as bare steel-gray-walled.

"Excuse me," Kylo Ren finally said, offense thick in every word and the corner of his eye twitching ever so slightly. His features were hardened, his jaw set, yet he still looked deceptively young.

"What in the world makes you think you have the right to reassign my agents as you please?" Hux jumped straight into the matter at hand, his hands balling into fists against his sides, very much against his better judgment: he was better off not showing any sign of emotion to this man.

Kylo Ren looked confused and now Hux felt triumphant because there was no mask to hide his face and he could read the man like an open book. "Because I do?" His voice was softer, more expressive but a tad awkward, as if he wasn't used to or didn't like talking without the mask's vocoder, and his tone was somewhat terse. "Rather than have your poor agents scour the Unknown Regions for naught I can actually make them useful."

" _For naught?"_ Hux said, immediately forgetting how he was not supposed to show emotion and didn't even bother to hide how stunned and frankly angry Kylo Ren just made him. "You have no idea of our scale of operations—"

"Actually, I do," Kylo Ren said and stood up from his bed, stretching his long limbs. "What do you take me for, _General?"_ he asked then, treating Hux's rank like an insult and if this was anyone else Hux would have sent him to court-martial just for that. "I have spent the last few weeks going through and studying all of your reports: if memory serves none of your agents have found anything worth our time in the past two months."

The more he spoke the closer to actual rage Hux found himself. "Still does not give you the right to undermine any First Order operations, no matter how important you feel your own are."

"Mine are of utmost importance," Kylo Ren replied, his eyes fixed on Hux's, observing him rather keenly with his dark deer eyes. "To the First Order as well."

"Says you."

"Says Leader Snoke," Kylo Ren said coolly. "You can confer with him if you so wish, _General."_

There, the insult, _again_. Hux grit his teeth and now it was his shoulders, under his coat, that were wired and pushed forward in tension and defense, a self-inflicted insult to the otherwise immaculate way he strove to present himself. He was not going to win this one, was he? "Can you at least share whatever it is that you're striving for sending my agents to _Jakku_ of all places? Is there even anything but sand and the long picked-clean skeletons of old Star Destroyers?" he snided.

Kylo Ren shrugged, an infuriatingly dismissive gesture. "Like I said, confer with Leader Snoke. What he feels is appropriate to share with you and rest of the First Order military leadership I will gladly share. Now with all due respect," he said and moved deceptively fast past Hux to the door so that it opened, and stood there in the doorway, holding the door open. Hux could feel the man's eyes bore into the back of his skull, and when he continued he managed a tone as cold as Hux usually used, but also full of actual threat, more fangs bared, more implied growl and warning and promise of violence, and no amount of innocent deep brown deer eyes could lessen the effect, "get the fuck out of my room."

Hux stilled for a second, breath caught in his throat, not as scared as he was just _outraged_ that the brat had the _nerve_ to threaten him in his base, under what used to be his sovereign rule, and without looking at Kylo Ren he did yet another perfect about-face, the hems of his gray greatcoat flowing behind him as he marched out of the room, hearing the door swoosh shut behind him.

They were not going to get along. At all.

 

***

 

The Supreme Leader had nothing against Kylo Ren sharing the findings of the agents he effectively snatched from Hux: it was all to further the First Order's agenda, of course, it just might not fall in line with their main endeavors with the Starkiller's construction, which was why Kylo Ren had free reign to carry out these semi-secret orders while the rest of the First Order could, in peace, concentrate on finalizing the weapon.

To Hux it made sense, even if it irritated him to no end. He liked keeping all the strings in his hands, just to be able to pull whenever needed. If the Supreme Leader's chosen agent for doing all of this would have been anyone else but Kylo Ren, he might have cooperated: told them which agents of theirs were chasing likely dead leads or keeping watch of long-abandoned resistance outposts and gladly offered them for whatever it was that the Supreme Leader was trying to achieve. But _because_ it was Kylo Ren and Hux delighted in getting under Kylo Ren's skin and trying the man's already paper-thin patience by making him jump through 'needless' military hoops like filing reports or making requisitions to get what he wanted, Hux did not offer help and instead found – under the initial irritation and anger – great pleasure in finding out Kylo Ren had once again pulled one of their more important agents off the field to send them on his secret assignments to some pointless sand or snow-filled planet halfway across the galaxy. He would then snide at Kylo Ren and question his competence and ability to think critically or did he really just resort to his magical powers to solve everything by violence or the threat of it until Kylo Ren's pale cheeks had to be rosy-embarrassed under than damnable mask. Of course Hux _hated_ it when Kylo Ren failed to exercise any sort of self-control and lashed out in anger, the sharp crackle and hum of his ridiculous lightsaber the impending sound of something being about to be slashed in half and destroyed completely, with deep plasma-melted gashes all along the walls of whatever room he was in at the moment. As amusing as that was because it was exactly like a child throwing a temper tantrum and it made other base personnel from senior officers to Stormtroopers absolutely horrified and they made themselves scarce at almost hilarious pace, Hux would end up having to file repair requests because Kylo Ren surely didn't care if he slashed the entire base in half.

There were no winners in this particular game of who ran the Starkiller Base.

When Kylo Ren did that to his own quarters, Hux, purely out of spite, did not file a repair request until Kylo Ren came demanding why his quarters hadn't been fixed, and Hux could coldly tell him, flipping through latest test results from the thermal oscillator on his datapad, that if he wished to get his room fixed he would either consider to start exercising self-restraint over his childlike tantrums or actually file the repair request himself; perish the thought!

Kylo Ren surely huffed and puffed under his stupid mask, his chest heaving, hand trembling and actually exercising self-restraint as he did not reach for his lightsaber.

"There," Hux said dryly. "Not that hard, was it?"

His eyes could hardly catch the movement, he felt brief heat on his face and saw a flash of oscillating red as Kylo Ren had moved like a shadow to him, drawn his stupid lightsaber (Hux kept hoping Kylo Ren would eventually stab himself in the thigh with the emissions from the plasma vents: they were there to regulate the heat emitted by the dangerous crystal embedded inside to provide the weapon with its power, but who in the world would use an unstable crystal like that if not for the sole reason of showing off? What needless bravado: that Kylo Ren could control the undeniably powerful weapon would mean nothing if he was in constant danger of stabbing himself with it, it just wasn't _practical_ ) and slashed downwards with one streamlined strike to cut in half the datapad in Hux's hands. He stood there in front of Hux with the lightsaber – crackling with heat oscillating along the unstable plasma blade – pointed at the ground between Hux's legs, chest still heaving, and likely staring at Hux through the mask.

Hux fought to let any surprise or anger or even the brief, flashing moment of fear from showing on his face, and he calmly put down the pieces of his broken datapad and looked up to that stupid mask, regarding Kylo Ren coolly. "Impressive," he said, sounding as unimpressed as he could, drawing from all the loathing he felt for this man and injecting it into his words like venom, "now go file the repair request. You're a big boy, I'm sure you can figure it out."

Kylo Ren's lightsaber flickered off and the man stood up in full height and without saying a word stormed off in the way only he could storm: poised, but long steps full of self-important anger and frustration, somewhat pathetic attempt at importance and zero patience. Hux never stormed, but he liked striding and did quite a lot of it along the long durasteel corridors of the Starkiller Base, but he knew he was important and he didn't need to pretend unlike Kylo Ren, who seemed to do a lot of things just to prove something. When he stormed down a corridor, people moved out of the way, even retreated inside the nearest room just to stay out of his way, while when Hux strode people either saluted him – begrudgingly, sometimes – or, if he seemed to be on a particularly foul mood – which was every day these days – just averted their eyes and pretended they didn't notice. Hux was fine with either. Inspiring fear was a novelty: Hux would rather inspire loyalty through respect – begrudging or not.

After Kylo Ren was gone Hux allowed his heart to beat out the split-second scare, every pulse like a sledgehammer against his ribcage, sweat pushing to his brow, and he decided never again to go quite so far in trying to get under Kylo Ren's skin. The man was undeniably dangerous and unpredictable and likely held no qualms about killing Hux if it suited his fancy (although the Supreme Leader would likely have something to say against that), but so far Hux just enjoyed playing with fire and finding pleasure in making Kylo Ren tick. It made him feel a tiny bit better about all his reassigned agents; all the lost time to practically babysit the out-of-control dark lord while he could be immersing himself in work more important and oversee the Starkiller like he was supposed to. He still did. He just slept less, but functioning with four hours of sleep a night was something he had already gotten used to during his days in the Academy when impressing his father was the most important thing in the world to him and he had become a weapon.

 

***

 

After that night Hux would dream disturbingly much about his father whenever he slept. The dreams weren't as bad as they were usually dull, just these small windows into his past, into memories he already had and could dredge up from the depths of his childhood whenever he wanted. They were about Brendol Hux conducting himself in the same kind of strict way Hux now conducted himself, about Brendol Hux being less of a father and more a commanding officer and teacher and – as Hux later would come to realize – a propaganda dispenser (although Hux would still consider the Empire's accomplishments on a whole another level to those of the Republic, age just had brought a more critical viewpoint to it all); a man Hux would call a father figure rather than a father. They were about Brendol Hux being disappointed, sometimes proud, always distant even in his scathing reprimands or rare words of praise, and Hux would mostly wake up irritated and exhausted and most of all puzzled, because he did not dream often and when he did, he did not dream of the past. He dreamt of hallways, always hallways, endless mazes of chrome and different shades of gray with flickering fluorescent lights and no one else around, and he was always in a hurry and on his way out but he did not know the way. At least once he had dreamt of a single endless journey in a turbolift. They were always corridors he had walked at some point of his life, those of the Academy, any of the Academies, even those on starships, the _Finalizer,_ the Starkiller Base; countless other insignificant bases and Star Destroyers he had spent time on serving.

He found the new memory dreams mildly irritating (at least he didn't dream about the time and chaos right after the Galactic Concordance or what little he remembered about fleeing Arkadis) and they were a distraction – funny, considering Brendol Hux's stance on distractions – but as long as he got his rest and would not think about the dreams afterwards he found no reason to dwell on the matter any more than during the couple of frown-worthy seconds after waking up. He would be mentally compartmentalizing his day by the time he went into bathroom to wash up and he forgot all about Brendol Hux and the childhood that never was as he concentrated on more important matters at hand, such as the accident at one of the solar collector arrays which had claimed the lives of twenty-one engineers and two Stormtroopers and set the construction back two weeks, or would he get any of his agents back today.

At times the agents Kylo Ren jacked from the First Order (Hux) and sent to whatever ass-end of the galaxy actually brought back useful intel. Nothing very useful for the First Order in whole: no hidden resistance bases, no valuable blackmail material to be used against the New Republic, no secret plans of new fleets. Usually, after an agent reported back with something substantial and Kylo Ren hurried to leave the Starkiller Base, often taking the _Finalizer_ with him, he returned within a couple of days in his command shuttle with a single person, beaten but still struggling like all the idiot resistance members Hux had ever met. He often watched Kylo Ren return from the observation area above the shuttle bay, hands clenched together behind his back, and watched Kylo Ren drag the spirited resistance member out, his steps lengthy, his Stormtrooper escorts trailing far behind.

He knew there was interrogation, conducted by Kylo Ren on his lonesome in any one of the base's interrogation rooms without the help of droids, and later medical personnel would enter in biohazard suits and carry out a gray matte body bag while Kylo Ren would head towards the holoprojector room to contact the Supreme Leader.

It was curious. He had once requested to see the captive's body after interrogation and was amazed to see that there were absolutely no visible marks of torture anywhere aside from the bruises and cuts the body had sustained during the initial capture. There were just bloody welts around wrists and ankles where the interrogation chair's restraints would dig into when struggled against, and then whatever had killed them eventually: in the case Hux saw with his own eyes it was a deep, gut-spilling gash along the body's torso from left shoulder to right hip, clearly made by a lightsaber judging by the neatly cauterized edges of the horrific wound.

Later he asked to read the autopsy reports and the cause of death was always instant: either a fatal lightsaber strike, a broken neck with the head turned to the side forcefully enough to twist the skin: no marks of lasting physical torture whatsoever. One had died of a heart attack: an elderly man, likely out of fear. Most struggled against their restraints. Other than that there was nothing specific about the reports and Hux was left wondering what in the world was going on behind closed doors.

Sometimes the interrogation room was destroyed afterwards, the chairs slashed in half, deep gashes in the walls, and Kylo Ren was particularly cross, anger and frustration in his step as he stormed to the holoprojector room for yet another secret tête-à-tête with the Supreme Leader. He never took his anger out on the captives though: Hux hadn't – thankfully – yet read a report about a captive having been chopped into pieces.

When Kylo Ren brought in the sixth captive, Hux asked which one of the interrogation rooms Kylo Ren had requested for himself, and was there waiting outside the door when Kylo Ren arrived with the captive, a human man in his mid-thirties, who had apparently already lost most of his will to fight against the masked monster dragging him along the long, bleak corridors of the Starkiller Base. Kylo Ren stopped like he had hit a wall at the sight of Hux waiting outside the interrogation room, greatcoat on his shoulders, order picture perfect.

"No", he just said, as if he knew why exactly Hux was there, and moved to the door to open it.

Hux stepped aside only to allow Kylo Ren to step inside the room, and followed suit before he had the time to close the door after him. That made Kylo Ren spin around, still holding the handcuffed captive by the collar of his dirty jacket, and presumably stared down at Hux.

"No," he said more forcefully and if it wasn't for the mask's vocoder making everything he said sound exactly the same, Hux believed this word was said in the same tone of voice Hux had heard once before, the only time he had been to Kylo Ren's room and seen him without the mask. The edge and danger it had had back then was completely lost in the mask.

"I just wish to observe," Hux replied icily, stared just as determinately into the blackness of Kylo Ren's mask. He was not scared of the faceless monster since he knew the face beneath the mask would not inspire fear in anyone. "I'm… curious about how you conduct these things."

"What part of 'no' do you not understand?" Kylo Ren asked as he moved to the chair and none too gently started strapping the captive to it. The captive muttered, half his face swollen from the beating he had taken, that Kylo Ren should just kill him right there because he wouldn't get anything out of him. Hux was pretty sure that was what they all said, and when they actually came through, that was when the room ended up destroyed.

Hux had absolutely no intention to leave, so he stood near the door, hands clasped behind his back, and watched as Kylo Ren went about his business and the captive muttered half-hearted, pointless threats and promises. When Kylo Ren was done, he stepped back to Hux, trying to tower over him with his frankly pathetic inch and a half and apparently trying to will him away from existence just by being threatening enough.

Hux regarded him coolly: it was so easy when the man hid behind the mask. "Go on," he said, a slight challenge in his tone.

After a rather lengthy, pointless staring contest during which Hux had no idea what was going through Kylo Ren's head, the captive quietly piped up: "Do you two need a room?" and was immediately silenced with a sort of an ugly, gasping sound as Kylo Ren's arm shot towards him, fingers like claws around an invisible throat. The captive kept gasping for breath, straining against his restraints, until after very merciful twenty seconds Kylo Ren let go and the captive was left gasping for air and panting, sweating now more than before.

"You are a distraction," Kylo Ren said, having at no point turned his face away from Hux.

"To our guest or to you?" Hux countered. He was hardly phased by the captive's inane jab: if the man wanted to play with his life, it was his business, and he found Kylo Ren's swift chokehold retaliation slightly amusing. Of course he knew already Kylo Ren was the kind of a person to rise to a bait like that: the Supreme Leader would do well to weed out those weaknesses out of his apprentice, along with his inability to control his temper. He knew the Sith of old drew their power from raw emotions, from fear, anger, hate, but Hux knew even Darth Vader had been able to control his feelings and only feed upon them when needed. That was what made it obvious Kylo Ren was just an apprentice, skilled though he might have been in ways of the Force. Maybe it actually was the dark side he really had trouble with.

To that Kylo Ren did not answer and after some more staring finally turned around, the hems of his robes brushing against Hux's ankles, and he walked to the captive and stopped in front of him.

"Do whatever you want, buckethead, you won't get anything out of me," the captive almost spat out, but almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth his eyes fell shut, his face contorted into a deep grimace and then fear flitted across his features as he suddenly fought to pull his arms free with renewed vigor.

"N-no," the captive managed, eyes open again and almost bulging out of his skull while he was starting to perspire strongly. "How did you—?"

Kylo Ren said nothing, did nothing: just stood there with his hands balled into loose fists as he concentrated, and stared at the captive, and it all dawned quite quickly to Hux. Of course. Kylo Ren was using some sort of mind probe technique to extract information from his captives: no need to ever even touch them, his mind was like his lightsaber no obstruction could deflect. Hux was impressed: he hadn't expected Kylo Ren would actually successfully use some sort of mind probe, considering that Hux had never seen the man exercise the kind of finesse, concentration and single-minded determination the technique required. Hux wasn't very well-versed in how anything Force-related actually worked since he liked the kind of science that could actually be explained with mathematics and logic, and the Force defied laws of nature in a way that was almost offensive to Hux. Things were supposed to be in order and explainable without abstract concepts that had more to do with religion than science. Even disorder had rules. The Force and its opposing sides light and dark were beyond his understanding.

He also had some personal experience in mind-probing, because all high-ranking officers of the First Order were trained to at least attempt to resist it by the Supreme Leader himself. It was difficult to anyone who was not Force-sensitive, but then again performing any techniques that messed with the mind required Jedi-level control of the Force, which made putting up resistance easier if the one attempting the probe was not in complete control of their abilities. Just because the Jedi Order did not exist, it did not mean that Force-sensitive people had disappeared from existence – in fact the First Order had few of them even in Starkiller Base right now – and just in case any officer who knew much about First Order command structure and specifically the Starkiller Base, such as Hux, would end up captured by the resistance or the New Republic – as improbable though that was – and interrogated by Force-sensitives or even trained Jedi, rare though their existence must have been, they had to be able to resist the invading consciousness not to undermine everything the First Order had worked for. It had been an exhausting training regime, and Hux had frankly no idea if he would be at all capable of resisting someone who was as strong in the Force as he assumed Kylo Ren was, but any lesser Force-sensitive he would be able to ward off without breaking a sweat, and he would proudly take the First Order's secrets to his grave.

He watched Kylo Ren extract his information, the captive now in tears and still struggling against the restraints, apparently trying to push Kylo Ren's probing mind out of his without having much success, and at some point during it all, Hux felt a strange familiarity brush against his own consciousness and the image of Brendol Hux was suddenly in his head, sitting behind his desk in his office, datapad in hands, with that strict look on his face that made his brow knit and added at least ten years to his barely forty, and with that he suddenly understood.

The thing with being able to resist the mind probe in the first place was that he had to be conscious, which he wasn't while he was asleep, and with that realization came such red-hot anger he couldn't help himself. He moved to Kylo Ren with couple of lengthy, hasty steps, moving so quickly that the greatcoat fell off his shoulders and folded on the brushed floor near the doorway, and – for once being the one who could not exercise self-restraint – promptly punched Kylo Ren to the side of his face. It only ended up with his fist smarting and knuckles likely splitting up underneath his leather gloves and Kylo Ren stumbled a bit, having not foreseen the assault since his concentration was fully elsewhere. Still Hux briefly realized the punch had likely had nothing but a slightly disorienting effect on its receiver.

"How _dare_ you?!" he snarled while Kylo Ren pulled himself up from the recoil and the captive was sobbing quietly, almost relieved, in the interrogation chair. "How _dare you_ rifle through my head while I sleep, you _utter bastard?!"_

To be honest, Hux should have seen it coming. He should have probably realized that physically assaulting Kylo Ren – no matter how ineffective the assault in question – was neither the brightest nor the best thought-out idea he had ever had, and he unfortunately had to live the consequences as Kylo Ren reached out his arm towards Hux and Hux could feel a phantom hand close in around his throat, a trained thumb pressing tight against his trachea to cut the airflow into his lungs completely.

For this he had no training against and the panic would rise immediately, fueled by adrenaline as he slowly started experiencing asphyxia, Kylo Ren just an arm's length away, hand a horrible claw, his innocent childlike face of a monster hidden behind that stupid mask.

"I told you were a distraction," Kylo Ren said, sounding horribly impartial through the vocoder and he shouldn't fucking sound like that, not when Hux was about to die. The Supreme Leader would not like that, surely he had told Kylo Ren not to kill important personnel while his stay in the Starkiller Base. Surely he had told him not to kill Hux.

Hux could not answer. To his merit he did not move, did not even raise his arms to try to fight off the phantom hand he knew held on too tight and he wouldn't be able to pry it off no matter what he did. He wanted to tell Kylo Ren that _he_ was a fucking distraction, he brought nothing but chaos to his perfect life of order, how Hux had to trail after him straightening every single thing Kylo Ren pulled askew and why in the name of everything did he dredge up thoughts of his father, what the fuck would he want to see in his childhood spent trying to become a bullet to someone else's weapon, the occasional failures to do so and the guilt that would follow, and how because of it he _had_ become perfect, the exact image of his father, something distant and cold but always effective, always proud; _flawless,_ a bullet _._

The last thing he remembered before blackness came, hypoxia setting in, was an image he did not recognize until a lot later, similar to him in many aspects but fundamentally different, and the anger at the unfairness, the abandonment, the failure he felt was his own.

 

***

 

Hux came to in the medbay, in a private room, wearing an oxygen mask and feeling something stiff and thick around his neck. He groaned quietly, the sound hurting his throat, raking the inside of it like sharp nails, and he slowly fought the mask off and briefly felt dizzy when the base's oxygen level was lower than what he had been breathing before. He then slowly sat up in the bed, immediately deciding that he was not going to take a sick-day off just because some absolute brat of a dark lord had once again failed to exercise even a modicum of self-restraint and had decided to choke his commanding officer to unconsciousness. The Supreme Leader was going to hear about it. Oh, he was going to hear about it and about everything Hux thought about Kylo Ren in the most scathing words even his father would have a hard time thinking up on the spot. And he would perform it like he performed his speeches.

He got his legs over the side of the bed, finding out he was still wearing his uniform trousers and an undershirt, and then stopped dead, frozen in place as he noticed the dark figure stark against the pure almost blinding white of the medbay walls. Kylo Ren sitting in a chair was somehow an absurd sight Hux could not recall having ever seen before. He had seen him stand and pace and storm and wield his stupid lightsaber and hold his arm stretched out in a chokehold – his temper flared at the thought – and sit on his bed with his legs crossed in meditation, but he had never seen him sit down like a, well, normal person.

The chair seemed small under him, his long limbs awkwardly around the chair's legs and arms hanging off the rests, hems of his robes in disarray. He didn't move: didn't really seem like he had noticed Hux get up from the bed, and Hux wondered briefly if the man was asleep and then the more pressing thought: what the fuck was Kylo Ren doing in his room in the medbay after trying to choke him to death? Surely Kylo Ren wasn't the kind of person to exercise remorse. Surely he wouldn't regret what he had done: didn't that go against whatever dumb code his kind followed?

And furthermore Hux definitely did not want to see Kylo Ren after having almost been choked to death by him, having learned that the brat played around in his head almost every night. That was such cross violation of his privacy Hux still felt like he could punch Kylo Ren in the face, preferably without the mask on the way, and gladly take whatever consequences would arise just as long as he'd have the _satisfaction_.

He watched Kylo Ren sit awkwardly in the chair, decided that the man had to be asleep, and slid off the bed, every movement sort of making his neck give a painful sting of protest. He didn't know what time it was or what day even, although he was sure it couldn't have been long: his injuries couldn't be that bad or sleep-deprivation that big of an issue, but somewhere he had to be needed whatever the time of day, and Hux wouldn't let one minute injury stop him from doing his job properly.

He moved to the end of the bed to pull on his boots, caught his uniform jacket neatly folded on top of the cabinet there and pulled it on, zipping it up and grimacing a little when the tight collar wouldn't fit properly over the thick bandage draped around his neck. He forced the zipper all the way up despite the dizzying protests the pain in his neck was making, and then grabbed his greatcoat, which was also draped on the cabinet. He was well on his way out of the room when he heard the stupid modulated vocoder voice from behind him.

"I'm sorry."

"Save it," Hux replied icily through the pain in his throat, somewhat not surprised at all to hear the voice. "The next time you try to kill me, at least finish the job properly."

"No, I…" Kylo Ren's hesitation and word-search sounded incredibly awkward through the mask and the next thing Hux heard was a soft hiss and then the softer, awkward, unmodulated voice that sounded like it didn't quite know how to make conversation: "It wasn't my intention."

"Funny," Hux replied, refusing to turn around while his hand went to his throat subconsciously, trying to relieve the pressure the collar was adding to his neck, "it felt quite convincing." Talking was a really bad idea: every word felt like sandpaper in his throat, scratching and tearing.

He could hear the frown in Kylo Ren's voice. "You insisted being there. I insisted you would go."

"So now it is my fault that you rifle through my brain while I'm asleep and you wanted to keep that particular invasive detail to yourself?" Hux replied, now angry enough to actually face the brat and show him just how incensed he was. He did not expect to see Kylo Ren look suddenly smaller in the chair, long and awkward though his limbs still were, the mask on his lap and he was looking down at it with a very unhappy expression on his pale face, those damnable out of regulation curls falling over his eyes. If Hux didn't know better he would've guessed Kylo Ren wasn't a day older than twenty. There was a tiny reddish blot on his jaw: at least something showed from Hux's pathetic punch.

"It's not that," Kylo Ren said quietly, sounding somewhat frustrated. "I didn't mean to. I know I can't get into your head like I can into pretty much anyone else's, so when I tried…"

"You _tried?!"_ Hux almost gaped, almost ready to close the distance between them and punch the brat again. The mask wasn't there. The satisfaction would be great. Worth dying for? Maybe not that great, but great nevertheless.

Kylo Ren raised his head a little and glanced at Hux. "Thought it'd be the only way to get anything out of you."

"You asshole. I understand you might not realize the potential security risks because what the fuck do you care about the First Order, but how depraved do you have to be to not realize how flagrant a breach of _personal privacy_ that is?" His voice almost gave out towards the end, the last words not really more than pathetic sizzles, like fireworks going out. He understood rifling through the heads of enemies or people Kylo Ren could manipulate or take advantage of, but Hux hadn't thought he would be considered one of those people. He thought they were allies, even if they quite clearly hated each other. _Enemy of my enemy is my friend_ and so on, and the New Republic was the common enemy here.

Kylo Ren turned away with a frown, almost like he was pouting. "I saw your father, you pushed me out. I never attempted it after that, realizing you must have had some sort of training, but I've… been seeing your dreams."

"What the hell?"

Kylo Ren ran his hand through his hair, pulling the curls back away from his eyes, and heaved a deep sigh, sort of shrugging. "I don't know! I sleep, meditate, suddenly I see some flash of what I assume is your past. Commandant Brendol Hux, right? You look a lot like him."

Hux didn't understand any of it anymore. So Kylo Ren hadn't been rifling through his head like reading someone's diary? He had just peeked, out of curiosity or frustration or whatever, pulled up some memory, kickstarted some subconscious routine his dreams wanted to process properly, and then shared those dreams via some Force shenanigans no doubt? What the hell, seriously. He managed to feel slightly amazed that Kylo Ren seemed to know his Imperial history well enough to recognize and know the name of his father, what with him having no official military training in the First Order: there was not a soldier in the base who would not recognize at least the name of Brendol Hux since the First Order owed their entire Stormtrooper training program to the man. Hux gaped at Kylo Ren long enough for the man to sigh again and look back at Hux.

"I suspected I might unconsciously attempt to reach out to you when I tried to extract information from my captive," Kylo Ren started explaining somewhat awkwardly, mostly because of the way he talked altogether rather than because he was making shit up as he went. "That's why I didn't want you there in such close proximity. That's what probably happened. I'm sorry."

"You really need to train more," Hux remarked in a clipped tone after a short stunned silence.

"I know," Kylo Ren replied, like it was just that: a simple fact. Hux found it admirable Kylo Ren would at least own up to his obvious shortcomings instead of lashing out in anger at the accusation.

A horribly uncomfortable silence fell to the medbay room, with Hux standing in the doorway not quite sure how to proceed with this all, and Kylo Ren staring down at his mask and turning it around idly in his gloved hands. Such long fingers. Like a claw. Hux drew an unnecessarily deep breath and felt it rip through his throat, making him unable to stifle a sharp gasp of pain. That made Kylo Ren turn his head like whip towards Hux and he was then scrambling quite ungraciously out of the chair. It looked amusing: Hux was used to seeing Kylo Ren conduct himself with utmost grace despite his awkward long limbs, probably owing to his combat training.

"It hurts," he just said.

Hux rolled his eyes in reply.

"Rest," Kylo Ren said. No: demanded. No, not quite. "Plead" would be a wrong word but it wasn't far away from truth. He looked almost guilty. Almost. Could be. It was really hard to read that face right now, it was a mess.

"No," Hux declined. He had a base to run and he hated idleness.

"No," Kylo Ren argued right back. "I can… I can take care of… things. You would find I can do it."

"Allow me to highly fucking doubt that," Hux replied in the driest tone he could muster.

"Consider it an apology," Kylo Ren still argued, now standing almost in Hux's personal space, still inch and a half taller, large dark deer eyes and horrible out of regulation curls. Hux found the proximity disconcerting and inappropriate and took a step back, finding out he was almost back against the door.

"An apology would be you gone from my fucking base, my dreams and my life entirely," Hux replied and thought he meant every single heartless word dripping out of his mouth like icicles as he stared up at the deer-eyed dark lord, letting his hatred and anger take better of him. "An apology would be you stopping to destroy things when something doesn't go quite the way you wanted it to. An apology… would be you, back at your master… learning to control yourself so your reckless unpredictability… would not… put everything we have worked for here… in danger." Getting all the words out was a challenge that took almost everything out of him, but he was not going to falter and show weakness in front of this infuriating brat. Kylo Ren would do well to learn not to do things he would find himself regretting later. Like trying to choke his commanding officer to death. Hux ignored the fact that they were, in practice, _fellow_ commanding officers: his ego refused to take that particular blow, even if it meant childishly playing pretend.

Kylo Ren stared at Hux with his stupid large deer eyes and the quick expression crossing his features, making his strong eyebrows furrow, could have been _hurt,_ and then, without blinking or saying a word, he moved past Hux and out of the room, the small hiss indicating he likely put his mask back on before he was gone.

Hux hoped upon hope it would be the last he would see of Kylo Ren.

 

***

 

He nearly got his wish.

The moment Hux left the room he got swarmed by a medical officer and a couple of droids demanding him to go back to bed and rest and no, he shouldn't try to talk at all, the injuries to his neck and throat were significant, his trachea had been nearly crushed and he had been just seconds away from brain damage due to oxygen deprivation and what is _wrong_ with that Lord Ren, he is out of control ("yes," Hux had replied and got shushed immediately), does he not think what he's doing at all? and Hux gingerly returned to the room, folded his greatcoat and uniform jacket on the cabinet, took off his boots and climbed into bed. He called someone to fetch his datapad within two minutes to be able to get a connection to the command center and find out what had happened while he was out of it, and what was about to happen while he had to stay bed-ridden. He hated it already. He had to assign officers to take care of his usual tasks as well and put Captain Phasma in charge like he usually did when the need arose. The Captain was an exceptionally good soldier, trustworthy and effective, which was a lot said from Hux.

He tentatively asked about Kylo Ren, couldn't really explain why exactly, and felt triumphant elation followed quickly by unexplainable guilt when he was told that Lord Ren had only a moment ago taken his command shuttle and left the base: his current whereabouts were unknown as he didn't take the _Finalizer_ like he usually did, but rather jumped into lightspeed in his shuttle after breaking the Starkiller's orbit.

Well, good. He laid down in the bed. Maybe Kylo Ren would be out of his hair now.

And he was. But Hux had not expected how droll it would be to return to what used to be the normal. The new normal had been for the most part the old normal with Kylo Ren added to the mix: Kylo Ren had been the wild card, like a misplaced comma in the _Finalizer_ 's hyperdrive engines' performance report that made everyone freak out for a moment and insert all control rods into the drives' main reactor to force manual shutdown before the math was done again and the comma put in its place and the engines turned on with everyone giving out a sigh of relief. It made everyone more alert: made everyone take extra precautions at times, but Hux was one who had never considered that a bad thing in itself: only if the comma would find its way into wrong places continuously he would start considering firing an engineer or two, and Kylo Ren had definitely been toeing that line with his constant tantrums and what Hux still considered insubordination although they had in theory been of equal rank.

What he did not expect was that he missed those moments of unpredictable chaos, that _distraction_ , that dark figure stalking or storming up and down the corridors hiding behind that stupid helmet, the equally stupid lightsaber hanging from his hip just waiting for the inevitable moment it would be used to strike down an innocent console somewhere (or hopefully slash the thigh of its wielder). And Hux missed the moment afterwards when he'd snide at Kylo Ren until he was sufficiently angry again and would either leave in a dramatic display of not admitting he was wrong while being clearly wrong or taking his anger out on the nearby wall, striking down another innocent console or a datapad Hux was holding. He had gone through four during Kylo Ren's stay in the base.

He still had those dreams of his father that now inevitably reminded him of Kylo Ren upon waking, and the more time he spent musing on it, one morning in front of the mirror with his toothbrush in mouth and stopped in motion when the pang of realization was painful and somehow compassionate: that last moment during the chokehold when he had seen a small figure hunched on the ground in a well-lit corridor he had assumed was himself, not older than ten or twelve and the corridor that of the whatever Academy he had attended at that time – he couldn't remember – until he took a better look. He didn't recognize the walls and the child had dark curly hair, just golden at the edges in the sunlight, sort of long even back then, pain emanating in angry bright flashes. It wasn't that Kylo Ren was physically hurt, but hurt in all other ways: away from home and being told that he was brilliant but doing things wrong: that there was too much emotion in him and that is why he lashed out when hurt or when someone close to him was hurt. ' _Too much of his grandfather in him'_ they said, and the other children, all in light-colored robes and sashes made fun of Ben because he was a bit funny-looking with big ears the hair didn't quite reach to cover completely, and he got amusingly angry so easily when teased. Children could be ruthless, Hux knew this. Skywalker interfering was always a blow to the already fragile ego of the Kylo Ren of back then. What followed was social awkwardness and the feeling of not ever really belonging; something being off, and he put his trust in the only person in his family who was like him and did not judge: his famous dead grandfather and later on the shadowy authority figure of the Supreme Leader who for the first time in Ben's life had appreciated his talent, his ability to tap into the emotions bubbling just beneath the surface, and didn't command him to subdue anything but to revel in it. Then a massacre and more solitude, less need for control, all the anger and hate and fear and frustration and jealousy of years and years and finally a man who didn't really know how to be anything but a malleable weapon.

He and Kylo Ren were disturbingly similar while being so, so different, Hux realized, resuming brushing of his teeth in embarrassment. Was that what Kylo Ren was trying to show him but failed at it gloriously because he had decided to take the invasive ass-backwards approach to it because he just – Hux assumed – didn't know better? And now Hux had driven him away without realizing that Kylo Ren might have just wanted if not a friend then at least a confidante: something he had never had (aside from his dead grandfather, which still was extremely creepy). Neither had Hux. Hux had no need for friends as long as he had allies and people he could trust and he was not going to admit he would have a particular need for one now, especially if candidates consisted solely of Kylo Ren.

He touched the still-sore colorful bruises on his neck, the shape of Kylo Ren's phantom thumb strikingly clear just below his adam's apple, and frowned at his reflection.

"Yes, he has returned," the Supreme Leader told Hux with a controlled nod of his head when Hux had been out of medbay for some time and it had been about a couple of blissful but somehow lacking free days from Kylo Ren and his spontaneous, distracting theatrics. The high collar of his uniform thankfully hid the slowly fading bruises but Hux had a feeling that the Supreme Leader knew the bruises were there anyway. "He cited irreconcilable differences."

"That would be correct, my lord," Hux replied.

"Unfortunate," the Supreme Leader said, dragging out the word thoughtfully, "for you both. I need Kylo Ren in the Starkiller Base. It is where he needs to be. It is unacceptable he languishes here, idle."

"My lord, _I_ was hoping you would be able to teach him some… manners and self-restraint," Hux said a bit hesitantly, knowing it could be grave mistake to badmouth the Supreme Leader's chosen way of providing teaching to his apprentice, even if said apprentice was an insufferable brat who kept destroying things as he willed.

"I cannot teach him something he is not willing to learn. The dark side is not all about chaos and Kylo Ren would do well to control himself better," the Supreme Leader replied. " _I_ was hoping he would learn there in midst of people."

"Kylo Ren is not a people person," Hux muttered, didn't think his conversational partner would hear.

"He is not," the Supreme Leader agreed with a hint of dry amusement in his voice. "Kylo Ren will return to Starkiller Base and I would personally hope you dealt with whatever these 'irreconcilable differences' are that arose during his stay there previously."

"Yes, my lord," Hux replied, gritting his teeth. He hadn't done that in a while and he excused himself as the Supreme Leader's ghostly holoprojection flickered out and shrouded the room in perfect darkness.

 

***

 

Hux decided to attend personally Kylo Ren's arrival and stood in the shuttle bay waiting, this time without any extra troops in ceremonial attire. Just him with his greatcoat over his shoulders, hands clasped behind his back as usual, and the couple of insignificant technicians scurrying around the bay attending to their tasks as Kylo Ren's stylish black _Upsilon-_ class command shuttle floated inside the hangar, its stabilizer wings slowly folding up in a high triangular shape as it came to a halt. The loading ramp opened with a pneumatic hiss and Kylo Ren strode into the hangar, wearing his usual attire of black and black and the irritating mask.

"General," he actually acknowledged Hux and stopped next to him while Hux just regarded the man coolly, not saying a word. He had conflicted thoughts about the entire thing. He had not yet managed to make any sense if Kylo Ren's stay in the Starkiller Base had more checkmarks in the pros list or the cons list. For now he felt… not nearly as annoyed as he had thought he would, not until Kylo Ren reached out his hand, hooked a gloved finger under the collar of Hux's uniform and peeked under it to see the bruises, as if checking out his handiwork.

He let go before Hux could retaliate – and he would have, already glaring icy daggers at Kylo Ren who had apparently lost all concepts of personal space – and turned his head away. It was infuriating Kylo Ren dared to touch Hux like that: it's as if his being there wasn't disorderly enough he had to suddenly mess with Hux's person as well. He straightened the collar, feeling slight embarrassment color his cheeks: he did not like showing the bruises to anyone and that included the one who had caused them in the first place. Especially him, to be honest.

"Sorry," Kylo Ren said.

"Yes, you said that already," Hux replied coldly: he had no plans to forgive Kylo Ren for what he had done. "Can we just put that behind us – along with you watching my dreams, which I would hope you didn't do anymore – and at least pretend to try to get along while you're here?"

"Leader Snoke…"

"Yes, he told me, you're required here," Hux replied as they slowly started making their way out of the hangar.

"If it were up to me I would have stayed away," Kylo Ren said. Hard to tell with the mask and his modulated voice, but it sounded a bit like he was muttering.

"If it were up to me I would have rather you stayed away, so at least the feeling is mutual," Hux replied, sounding almost civil. Probably the only civil thing he had ever said to Kylo Ren. Which was actually saying a lot.

"You really hate me," Kylo Ren said.

"Obviously," Hux replied.

Kylo Ren said nothing to that, just faced forward as they from some wordlessly agreed-upon decision headed straight towards the command center. Kylo Ren probably wanted to check up on his agents he had left hanging when he had left the base: the base had been contacted a couple of times, but the agents always refused to report to Hux or any other senior officer, and since they couldn't get to Kylo Ren and no one in Starkiller Base was actually authorized to give out the Supreme Leader's coordinates, the agents were effectively left hanging. Hux hoped none of them had captured some crucial information that was now lost or useless because Kylo Ren had been offworld for so long. Hux did not want to witness another temper tantrum the first thing after Kylo Ren's return, probable though he feared it might end up being.

"I'm sorry I tried to look into your head," Kylo Ren said after a while. Was he suddenly trying to apologize for every single thing he had done during his stay in the base? Hopefully not: Hux would have to listen to apologies well into next week. And what next? Was he finally going to start filing his own repair requests?

Hux stopped on his tracks and briefly brushed his hand over his forehead, heaving a sigh. "Did it ever even cross your mind that if you wanted to know something about me, you could have always _asked?_ " he questioned.

Kylo Ren stopped as well and slowly turned to Hux, irritatingly unreadable now with the mask and his body language neutral. "Would you have answered?" he asked.

Good point, Hux admitted. He probably wouldn't have. Probably would have depended on the nature of the query. He couldn't see himself chatting casually with Kylo Ren, but if Kylo Ren would have wanted to know more about the Starkiller or the First Order or maybe Hux's service history, he would have probably provided the answers. "Wouldn't have hurt to try," he replied, and that was almost like offering an olive branch, not even a hint of snide in his tone.

"I will… keep that in mind," Kylo Ren said contemplatively and resumed his somewhat leisurely pace towards the command center, not a sign of stride or storm in his step.

_Not a people person,_ Hux thought, and followed the man, faintly recalling the weird memory Kylo Ren had provided him during the chokehold. A lot of things had started making sense about Kylo Ren after Hux had realized what the memory was about. He wondered if it had been intentional, or if bringing it up with Kylo Ren would just cause the man to try to choke him again. His past didn't actually seem like the kind of thing he – or anyone – wanted to talk about.

Maybe someone ought to. Maybe it had been a subconscious plea of… help. The thought made Hux feel weird and glance sideways at the man walking beside him, a completely unexplainable feeling suddenly materializing in his chest and he felt alarmed for a second until he decided it had to be just heartburn from lunch and too much coffee.

He had never actually _cared_ about anyone before: how was he supposed to know how caring or sympathy – completely alien concepts in practice – actually felt like?

 

***

 

It was absurd: the Supreme Leader's unnatural calmness in the face of adversity while the whole base – the whole _planet_ – was collapsing unto itself under Hux's feet and the Starkiller was in its death throes. "Bring me Kylo Ren", he just said, frighteningly impartial, definitely calm before storm, before the holoprojector flickered off and Hux, cursing under his breath and knowing there might not be _time_ , attempted to make it to the door. Yet another violent groundquake shook the room badly enough to make him lose his balance and stumble against the wall. Outside in the corridor alarms were blaring, the calm-voiced evacuation notice was playing on repeat from loudspeakers, and the personnel were few and far between, the last people trying to make it out of the base before its eventual collapse. Some were carrying others or helping them walk and Hux saw injuries and bloody faces before he just stopped giving a shit about appearances and broke into a run, heading towards the shuttle bays.

Thankfully he found Kylo Ren's command shuttle exactly where it was supposed to be and no one had taken it in their panic just to escape in time, and Hux clambered up the loading ramp, another quake shaking the base and making him crash quite painfully shoulder-first against the wall inside the shuttle. He smashed the button to draw the ramp back in and seal the airlock and, holding his shoulder with a grimace, made it through the thankfully small shuttle to the cockpit. He hadn't personally flown a spaceship in ages, but he had training, of course, could in theory fly _Resurgent-_ class Star Destroyers like the _Finalizer,_ and _Upsilon_ -class was entry level easy to fly: with a TIE/fo fighter he would have been in trouble. He threw his greatcoat on the backrest of the pilot seat, sat down, fired the engines, felt the dampened rumble as the craft took to the air, and slowly turned it around to face the hangar exit before lowering the stabilizers and shooting out of the base, leaving the alarms and repeating evacuation notices behind. He didn't fly too high: he didn't know where Kylo Ren was, only had the general idea that he had to be somewhere close to the superstructure of the thermal oscillator if he was still alive, and flicked the shuttle's scanner on to scan for surface life signs. The planet did not look quite as bleak as it had before: it was dark with the nearby star having been completely exhausted and the planet had fallen into twilight gloom, but because of the failing containment field the quintessence within the planet's core was already tearing the ground apart, magma-red chasms like furious bloody welts drawn zigzag across the landscape amidst the pure white snow, the stark contrast in the darkness almost beautiful. Hux realized it was no time to stop admiring the view what with his mission and the planet about to implode any minute and he had to make a sudden evasive maneuver as one of the open chasms spat out a geyser of molten lava.

He didn't know why he tried so hard. It was unlikely Kylo Ren was even alive. It was even more unlikely that Hux could find him and manage to break the atmosphere before the planet collapsed. And even if by some miracle they both survived, he knew the Supreme Leader would not tolerate failure and the destruction of what the First Order had poured the last few years, three decades of research and billions upon billions of credits and resources into building. Yes, they had taken Hosnian Prime. The leadership of New Republic was in shambles, its fleet decimated, and Hux definitely counted that a victory, yet a pathetic, undermanned sect of the resistance had managed to destroy everything Hux had worked for, all because Kylo Ren had to go and poke that particular nest of ants. They should have never attempted to fire at D'Qar. It had been utterly pointless, and look where it had gotten them. He hoped most of the First Order leadership had made it out of the base and aboard the _Finalizer_ , and the ship was already far away from the imploding planet, traveling towards one of their secondary bases, specifically assigned for evacuation and regrouping.

Yes, they had taken Hosnian Prime, but the First Order were now just as scattered as the New Republic. The galactic balance would not shift one way or the other. The thought made Hux furious: a lot lost, a little gained, in the end.

He was drawing closer to the thermal oscillator, or what was left of it (he had no time for regret or shame of feelings of failure or loss right now), he saw a gigantic chasm having torn the ground apart nearby, and there was a blip on the scanner, showing a tiny red dot at the very edge of the radar range. His heart jumped and he flew in closer, lowering the shuttle above the trees and drawing the wings up as the shuttle touched ground. And within a very frantic thirty seconds he was scampering down the ramp and towards the rather easily visible dark figure lying in the snow. While another violent quake shook the planet, he kneeled next to the unmoving form of Kylo Ren, not sure what to feel because the need to escape the planet before it was too late was still his number one priority and seeing Kylo Ren like that was quickly challenging his list of priorities.

"You fucking _bastard_ ," Hux muttered angrily and _concern_ towards another human being was yet another feeling he had never before experienced, so he just turned it into frustration and anger because right now he didn't even have the time to _deal_ with this particular brand of bullshit. He peeled off a glove and checked for a pulse, much to his relief finding it beat lazily under his fingers. Then he was turning the quite unconscious Kylo Ren on his back, not even phased by the fresh but shallow gash that ran across his face since the wound on his side was a bit more urgent matter altogether. Only now he noticed the snow stained with blood, Kylo Ren's robes and wide leather belt sticky and wet. That was no lightsaber wound, he noticed immediately, as opposed to the gash across his face, and then he realized he knew absolutely no first aid. _Upsilon_ -class command shuttles came with basic first aid amenities and a medical droid, but who knew if Kylo Ren had decided those were unnecessary, and first aid was something Hux couldn't do. About the only thing he couldn't do. Suddenly he felt helpless, kneeling there next to unconscious Kylo Ren while the planet raged around them, and he felt like lying down and dying here would be alright. Curling up there next to Kylo Ren, failures the both of them, deserving this wretched end.

It would be better than going back and trying to live up to his failures, which could end up being very short time indeed.

After short contemplation however he reached for the familiar crude lightsaber hilt lying nearby, stashed it under his belt and then he was pulling Kylo Ren up, throwing his arm over his shoulders and grabbing him tight by the waist and starting to drag him towards the shuttle's ramp. The man was heavier than he looked and Hux had to exert quite a lot of strength to be able to haul him around. Effortless it was not. Kylo Ren stirred then, with a painful hiss and a moan and he muttered out Hux's name in what Hux thought had to be surprise before falling back unconscious again. Funny he should do that only when he was dying. They got inside the shuttle, Hux drew in the ramp again, rather unceremoniously just dropped Kylo Ren down on the floor right there and hurried to the cockpit, knowing they really did not have time to spare at this point. The growls of the planet outside were growing threatening, and he saw more angry lava geysers shoot up from the chasms, a bit like giant waves hitting high rocky shores. He briefly remembered Arkadis and all the _water_ , and then he was pulling the shuttle up again, this time heading straight up towards space and hitting the engines hard to clear atmosphere and help break escape velocity. He wasn't sure how fast the shuttle could handle that, but trusted blindly that it should be enough. He expected the planet's implosion to pull them back any second, but soon enough the stars were brighter and the planet behind them a cracked, angry rock shaking in its death throes. The orbit was vacant: there was no _Finalizer_ , no smaller ships of the First Order fleet that usually remained stationed outside the Starkiller just in case New Republic or the resistance would attack – a lot of good had they done – and Hux inserted the coordinates the Supreme Leader had given him into the shuttle's console, plotting the hyperjump and then just flicking the switch and hitting the button and with a barely noticeable jerk as the shuttle's sublight engines engaged the stars stretched past the shuttle's viewports and whatever happened to the Starkiller wasn't their problem anymore.

He sank into the pilot's seat, drenched in sweat, and allowed himself to close his eyes and catch a breath.

Hux tried, just to keep his mind occupied, to do the science, and figured that it was entirely possible a new star would be born from the Starkiller's core: there was so much quintessence, they had basically just transferred all the power from the star nearby inside the Starkiller and the following implosion could, in theory, birth a whole new star. That was sort of a soothing and even tragically beautiful thought: that something would come of the Starkiller in the end, even if it was an infant star in a system where nothing else lived; just one of the millions and _millions_ of insignificant stars in the galaxy, but still: their star, their _legacy._ A cosmically ironic antithesis.

It was a peaceful, delightful moment to realize that he had survived and he was alive and had maybe left an infant star behind, and it shattered into pieces when he remembered he had also left Kylo Ren lying unconscious and bleeding right next to the ramp in the small cargo area, and once again he was scampering hastily up to his feet, still trembling, and with the help of the walls – even though the shuttle's travel through hyperspace was as steady as ever – made it back to Kylo Ren.

He was still lying face down on the floor, having already managed to stain it with blood.

"Alright, get up, let's see if we can do anything to get you fixed," Hux muttered, mostly just to placate his own nerves since Kylo Ren was still unconscious, and hoisted the injured dark lord up and dragged him through the shuttle, only to find out that there was no medbay. There was no droid either. Fucking idiot. Hux stood in the middle of the small area used for relaxing during hyperjumps or while the shuttle was idle with Kylo Ren's head drooping against his shoulder, and then dropped Kylo Ren on the couch and stared at him, that strange feeling he had tried to forget and smother blossoming into full life inside his chest, like an infant star being born from the tatters of a planet, and he wondered if it had all been for nothing. He had no idea what to do with the wound on Kylo Ren's side: it was undoubtedly starting to be fatal with all the bleeding although from what he could tell it hadn't hit any internal organs. He was paler than before, his lips had a bluish tint, and Hux had no fucking idea what to do. It didn't help that this wasn't his shuttle and he had no idea where anything was: if there was a thermal blanket somewhere that would help keep Kylo Ren warm at least. If there was even a simple first aid kit so that he could sterilize and dress the wound: that, he believed, he could at least do.

_Help_ , he thought, staring at Kylo Ren and thinking if it was his fault if Kylo Ren died right now. It would be a great final notch to things he had failed at today, and he would definitely not live through meeting with the Supreme Leader. At least he wouldn't have to deal with the ramifications of what Kylo Ren dying here without Hux being able to do a thing to stop it would do to his psyche specifically.

He had never felt so helpless in his life, not even when he was a child. At least back then Brendol Hux was there to tell him, in harsher words than was probably necessary, what he was supposed to do, and slowly he had started to figure out things on his own. But he had no idea how to save a human life. He knew how to take one, knew several different ways, actually, pointless to keep count, but saving someone? Outside his scope of skills. A bullet could only wound and kill.

And when that someone was actually someone he realized he did not want to see dead: was the last person in the universe he wanted to see dead despite all the times they had clashed and proclaimed their hate for each other… he huffed angrily to bite back the tears, and started pacing before starting to angrily go through cabinets and every single nook and cranny in the ship to find something, _anything_ , that could help. He found some rations. A whole stack of datapads, probably loaded with entertainment of all kinds. A whole lot of good those were right now.

"The… cargo bay…" came a miserable, raw voice from the couch and Hux spun around quickly enough to get dizzy, witnessing Kylo Ren, the magnificent idiot, attempting to sit up from the couch.

"You lie back down or I'm going to punch your lights out," Hux barked, resisting with all his might the urge to just go to Ren and help him and make sure he was alright. He stayed admirably frozen in place, hands balled into fists, the leather almost creaking from the force he was exerting. And then he noticed that Ren was pretty openly crying, tears trickling down his ghostly pale, dirt-speckled cheeks, mouth in a frown.

"What's the point?" he asked, attempting to swallow a sob and hiccupping instead, slowly regaining his voice. "I failed. The girl escaped. The girl overpowered, near killed me. She is strong with the Force."

"Shut the fuck up," Hux growled.

"I wounded the Stormtrooper though," Kylo Ren said, pride completely misplaced if he just actually got his ass kicked by someone who barely knew what she was doing. Hux hadn't been privy to the fact that the girl was more than Force-sensitive at most, having been able to escape interrogation at least. "And I killed my father," Ren then added, completely unexpected.

"What?"

"Yes."

"That… is a good thing?" Hux offered.

Kylo Ren barked out a laugh and immediately broke down into coughs. The idiot was still sitting up, clutching his side. "Probably," he said. "I don't know," he added and then actually broke down completely, his head slouching forward and the sobs audible and frankly horrible and disconcerting to listen to. If it wouldn't have been flagrantly inappropriate, Hux would've gotten down on his knees and given Ren a tight, hopefully comforting hug. He had no idea how to even beginning to approach a thought like that. He didn't even know how to be comforting.

"I don't know," Kylo Ren repeated.

Hux was so put-off by Ren bawling like a child that he quickly made sure he had heard right, 'the cargo bay', right? and then headed there in search for anything that could help. He found a thermal blanket and the apparently deemed-useless medpack from one of the tall equipment cabinets, shoved there in the back behind some Stormtrooper equipment. He hurried back to Kylo Ren, much to his dismay still finding him crying into his gloved hand. Hux had no idea why: was he in pain, or was it regret, or fear, or even sadness, or just the crushing feeling of failure Hux knew all too well, although he would _never_ cry because of it.

"Look, lie down now, alright? I found a thermal blanket, you were lying in the snow for who knows how long, you must be freezing," Hux said, approaching Ren somewhat hesitantly.

"Hux," Ren whined, ignoring everything Hux had just said, "did I do the right thing?"

"I don't know," Hux replied, colder than he had meant, and continued: "the right thing to do right now is to lie the fuck down so that I can get this heavy piece of shit blanket on you."

"You should probably first look at the wound," Ren suggested.

"Fine, whatever, can you get your robes off?" Hux sighed.

Ren nodded, swallowing back a sob, and unhooked his belt, the rest of his robes quickly unraveling after that. Hux had wondered if the wound on his side was a blaster wound – unlikely, considering Kylo Ren could stop blaster bolts in midair with his brain, he had seen this – but no, it was just this _organic hole_ , pierced almost all through the torso, made by something entirely different and relatively primitive compared to laser or plasma-based weapons, and the slowly forming huge bruises around it seemed a bit like someone had been pummeling the wound. Hux kneeled in front of Kylo Ren just to take a better look, hard though it was because of all the blood.

"What in the world did this?" he asked.

"My dad's wookiee," Ren replied. "Bowcaster. Doesn't matter. Do you know how to stop the bleeding?" he asked, slowly recovering, while still sniffling a little.

"Not really."

"I can help," Ren said, kept a short pause and then amended: "I can try."

"You better," Hux said, glancing up at Ren and his tear-swollen red eyes, the painful sting of what he by now recognized as sympathy, flaring up in his chest. "Lie down, easier to see."

The stubborn idiot finally did as he was told, closed his eyes, and with some sort of bullshit Force magic knitted the wound shut, stopping the bleeding. Afterwards he was exhausted, his reddened eyes back to full feverish and sweating all over, chest heaving in exertion. Hux dressed the wound, tentatively questioned if the magical Force-healing or whatever would hold, and Kylo Ren replied just as tentatively that it probably should, at least for long enough for them to get to medical personnel.

Hux nodded at that, _good_ , and then finally threw the heavy thermal blanket on Ren, covering him effectively with it. "I can't do anything about your face," he admitted, standing there next to the couch, looking down at the now-shivering Kylo Ren under his heavy blanket.

"It's been a lost case anyway," Ren attempted a half-hearted joke and much against his better judgment Hux huffed out loud in near-affront, crossing his arms over his chest. Kylo Ren's face was just fine. Hux had never had particular eye for human beauty or aesthetics: he admired personality traits: intelligence, ruthlessness, being effective and self-sufficient, doing what needs to be done (almost all of those things Kylo Ren possessed, yet the rest of him was so disagreeable Hux had refused to see the good traits, afraid he'd stop seeing the ones that disagreed with everything he respected in others); never some arbitrary physical features. And now he knew he found Kylo Ren's face pleasant to look at, the new scar notwithstanding. It might have been the familiarity. He would have loved to study those features for hours, get to know every contour and curve, every mark, every faint scar and the new big one across his face from forehead to cheek, the way his dark deer eyes hardly captured any light, his exact shade of pale; if his ears were still just as big under that out of regulation curly mess of hair now damp from melted snow and sweat and sticky and clumped together from blood.

"Don't sell yourself short, idiot," he said.

That made a rather horribly uncomfortable silence fall in the room, the normally barely audible sound of the sublight ion engines suddenly loud enough to fill the entire room. Hux felt unnecessarily self-conscious and from what he could tell from Kylo Ren's face, he did too.

"It's, um," Ren said, glancing away from Hux, looking sort of off-balance, "it can't be helped. It's just a scar. I'll live."

"I can clean it up," Hux then said and kneeled back next to Ren, reaching out for the medpack. There was disinfectant left, so he dabbed a ball of cotton in it – such _archaic_ measures, why had the idiot thrown away the droid? – and then hesitated before taking it to the wound on Ren's face, hovering there above him awkwardly, not sure if he should ask for permission. Kylo Ren stared back, solemn under the fever, and something akin to a grin tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"Don't," Hux said coldly and started cleaning the wound, finding himself dabbing away at it far gentler than he would have expected from himself.

Kylo Ren stared at him all the way through the quick operation, dark brown deer eyes heavy-lidded and Hux just strove to ignore the look, faintly aware his ears had reddened slightly, and the longer he was aware of Ren looking at him, the deeper the crease between his eyebrows grew. He finally decided the wound was clean enough – didn't look any prettier, though, but at least all the caked blood was now gone and revealed the entire thing in its gruesomeness – and drew away, busying himself with the medpack to see if there was something he could dress the wound with. He sort of wanted to just wrap Kylo Ren's entire face in bandages: he was used to bearing a mask, after all, and then Hux wouldn't have to suffer those damnable deer eyes following him everywhere, like they did right now: he knew they were fixed on the back of his head. He had no idea why he did that: was he attempting to get into his head, extract information like from his interrogation victims? If so, Hux was glad he had the training and mentally brazed himself to feel anything out of ordinary in his mind. For now it was just him and his thoughts, which, at the moment, wasn't really a good place to be.

And then Kylo Ren said the most unexpected thing, in a quiet and measured voice: "Thank you."

Hux was glad he wasn't facing Ren at that moment and it took him a full couple of seconds to parse the words and compose himself before he could reply: "Just doing my duty."

"Leader Snoke?"

"Yes," Hux confirmed.

"I would have probably left you, were the parts reversed," Ren said then, still in the quiet, measured voice. A horrible thing to say in itself, but Hux caught the underlying meaning, the rare show of sympathy, misplaced though it was. After a while Ren continued, the tone less measured but still quiet: "And I would've stayed with you. We both failed. Would have been…"

"Better to die with the Starkiller, yes," Hux finished for him, almost slammed the medpack lid shut and turned back towards Kylo Ren. "Considering what probably awaits us both when we reach the Supreme Leader. I will face full consequences and stand by my failures, it's the last honorable thing I can do."

Kylo Ren frowned. "You loved the Starkiller," he said. "How does it feel to…?"

"How do you _think_ it feels?" Hux replied in a clipped tone, anger bubbling under. "Years wasted for something that could have been avoided were it not for your obsession with this girl and the Supreme Leader's hubris in trying to catch the last remaining Jedi Master in the galaxy. How do you _think_ it feels when it all falls apart without being able to affect the outcome, waiting for the firing squad only for following orders?!"

"I wouldn't…"

"Of course you wouldn't because you don't give a shit about _anything_ , you just go as you please with your stupid lightsaber and do whatever the hell you want without any regard for others and because of you the entire First Order is as fractured as our enemy. _Your_ enemy, as well, _Ren._ You're a weapon, but instead of well-aimed, effective one you're nothing but a loose cannon taking unpredictable unplanned potshots at whatever you personally perceive a threat." He didn't realize it before it was all out of his mouth, the ugly litany of truth, that he had tears rolling down his cheeks. He blinked angrily, too proud to raise an arm and wipe them away, and he stared in challenge at the broken dark lord under the large thermal blanket, daring him to say something. Anything. Try to dispute it or just get angry and get up, grab the lightsaber from the table next to the couch where Hux had placed it so that Ren could easily reach for it if needed and take it to the shuttle. Maybe extend his hand and choke the life out of Hux like he should have done weeks ago. No obstruction deflect. Long-since-faded bruises around his neck throbbed in phantom pain.

Kylo Ren did no such thing: just stared at Hux as if he was wearing the mask. (Where was the mask?)

"You took us all down with you," Hux concluded, quieter than before and still too proud to wipe off the tears. Do not show weakness. Pretend the tears aren't there. He is twelve, hiccupping from subdued tears in the corridor outside his father's office, an exam datapad with less-than-favorable grade held tight in his trembling hands; Brendol Hux's disappointment evident in every look, every word, the way his shoulders wired, his mouth tightened. He doesn't remember the last time he cried. Might have been that time: he had decided he would stop crying for lost grades: he would strive to do better next time, be the best. And he was. No reason to cry.

And if he was brutally honest this time it was less about failure and more about Kylo Ren, the months' worth of frustration and irritation pouring out along with his newfound concern and fear and the strange overflowing distraction in his chest, and he hated Ren: hated how he did not have it in him to have left the man back on the dying planet and stayed behind himself as well.

"I'm sorry," Kylo Ren said quietly.

"It won't change a thing," Hux snapped.

Then Ren was slowly scampering up from the couch, the thermal blanket dropping to the ground, and the angry protests died at Hux's lips when Ren just kneeled next to him and, very awkwardly, a bit like trying to pet a dangerous, venomous animal and not sure how exactly go about it, wrapped his long arms around Hux's shoulders and drew him into a very unexpected embrace. It was the sheer surprise, being rendered completely speechless and dumbstruck that prevented Hux from instantly pushing Ren away.

"I'm _sorry,_ " Kylo Ren said, now close to Hux's ear, very insistently, and maybe there was a note of _'I will do better next time'_ or _'your feedback has been noted and I will work on my issues'_ but frankly when Hux reached the point he was able to think straight again, he didn't care what the implication was and he allowed himself be held, although he did not return the embrace. Didn't really know how, and even if he would have, was not sure if he should. It just made him feel weary, like it was impossible to fight at this point and giving in to the distraction would be the right thing to do. Give in to this; give in to something he had never allowed himself before.

"Go lie back down, you're injured," Hux said tiredly.

"You hurt," Kylo Ren replied.

"No," Hux denied. "And what in the world does this help?"

"I was hoping it would." _Maybe it did make_ you _feel better, all those years ago, back when someone still cared_. Hux was not so simple: had never found solace or comfort in human touch and it would take a lot more than a sudden and awkward, cold embrace to acclimatize him to it, even if it was wanted and needed.

"In vain. Go lie back down, Ren, your timing and self-restraint are atrocious as usual," Hux said around the weird, uncomfortable shape in his throat, still a bit too tired, just altogether _exhausted_ to get properly angry; inject the usual venom in the words.

"What if I were to say that I feel much better here than I did lying under that blanket?" Ren replied, arms still persistently around Hux's shoulders, the side of his face cold against Hux's cheek and temple.

"I would say you're out of your mind with fever," Hux replied wryly, slowly gathering what little scraps of his wit remained. "I would feel much better were you lying down under that blanket and trying not to die just because you were for some unfathomable reason worried for me."

"You know you're sometimes just as bad at 'exercising self-restraint' as I am?" Ren noted as he slowly drew away, his hands trailing along Hux's arms. His feverish, wet eyes caught Hux's before he laboriously got back on the couch and lied back down. "You just take it out on things that cannot be repaired by just filling a form."

Hux decided to not think about at all what Ren's words meant, and he stood up as well, gave Ren one last look as the man was pulling the thermal blanket over him with a look Hux couldn't read on his face, and then turned to leave. "Call me on the intercom if you need anything," he said before slowly starting to make his way back to the cockpit.

"I would need you," was Kylo Ren's quiet answer, but Hux disregarded it as feverish nonsense before going.

 

***

 

The travel to the Supreme Leader's coordinates wasn't long and wouldn't take longer than a couple of hours. During the wait exhaustion sneaked up on Hux and he fell asleep in the pilot's seat, wrapped up in his greatcoat, curled up with legs drawn awkwardly against his chest. He slept fitfully, no dreams of memories or of Brendol Hux, nothing but sleep, yet he woke up feeling possibly even more exhausted, limbs aching and with an ominous feeling he sometimes got after the most frustrating of his 'normal' hallway dreams: those that were close to becoming nightmares when he realized he would never get out and there was no end to the hallways: that it wasn't a maze but a closed circuit.

The stars were still stretched to infinity beyond the viewports and it took a while until he noticed Kylo Ren at all. The man had curled up on the co-pilot's seat next to Hux's, wrapped in the thermal blanket and from the looks of it, fast asleep. Hux let out a quiet curse: why, _why_ couldn't the idiot just stay put? If the couch was uncomfortable he could've moved to the small cabin at the back where the beds were: the _Upsilon_ -class was after all designed to sustain a small crew over longer periods of time such as during long hyperjumps through several systems.

According to his calculations they would be arriving to their destination within twenty minutes, and the console in front of him confirmed the remaining travel time. Hux straightened his legs, stifled a yawn and then turned back towards Ren. He knew, from dragging the unconscious man to the shuttle back on Starkiller, that he weighed a lot more than Hux had assumed and he wasn't up to dragging him back to the couch, considering he would likely just wake up and protest. It would be a fool's errand. He figured it was better to let the man sleep in the seat: he knew it was uncomfortable and he couldn't understand, for the life of him, why Kylo Ren would choose an uncomfortable pilot seat instead of an actual bed to sleep in, but there he was and he could do nothing about it. He also didn't wish to wake Ren up. His sleep hardly looked peaceful: his brow was slightly furrowed, lips slightly parted and breathing somewhat laborious, and he was so unhealthy pale that the small dark spots on his face stood out, mapping a chart of dark randomized stars. The deep dark hair framing his face didn't help. At least his lips didn't have the bluish tint anymore.

Without really even thinking about it Hux raised an arm and reached out for Ren, softly touching his cheek, tracing his gloved fingers from one spot to another down to his jaw and back up over his ear to just tentatively brush away a strand of hair. It just fell right back to where it had been. Stupid out of regulation hair. He could feel the fever under his fingers, through the leather: the slightly damp forehead and the heat emanating from it. He had wanted to study that face, he thought. Run his finger down a cheekbone, over chapped lips. Stay away from the scar until it was healed and then trace the edges. There was nothing remarkable about it now that he did it: Kylo Ren was flesh and blood, his skin maybe pale but soft, bone structure not as pronounced as Hux's was. Yet his heart was beating harder, his mind full of questions that had no answers, his chest filled with the all-consuming distraction, a fist around his heart.

When Kylo Ren just suddenly opened his eyes, rather slowly and tiredly, and fixed them instantly on Hux, Hux drew away his hand feeling like it was suddenly on fire: like the skin under touch had burned.

Ren looked at him, eyes just tired slits but gleaming with fever. "What?" he asked.

"Nothing," Hux replied, tried to ignore the burning of his hand and turned to the consoles in front of him. "We're arriving soon. Why didn't you go sleep in a bed?"

"You were here," Ren replied without providing any acceptable answers.

"Yes, and?"

"You were here," Ren repeated. "Didn't want to be alone."

"Why? So if you crashed I could exercise my nonexistent skills in first aid to keep you alive?"

Kylo Ren kicked his long legs out of the blanket and to the floor and looked away, expression that of a petulant child as he almost pouted.

"You just don't get it, do you?"

"Get what?" Hux snapped.

Ren stayed quiet, now contemplative as he, too, looked at the stars stretching out past the viewports. "Nothing. No point explaining. Doesn't matter."

"Do not bring up things like that, then, if you're not willing to explain," Hux said with a huff and somewhat laboriously stood up from the seat, stretching his aching limbs. Sleeping curled up in a small chair not meant for sleeping had made half his body seize up and he felt like he needed to get his blood flowing again properly. He paced around the back of the small cockpit while Kylo Ren pulled his legs back inside the thermal blanket, remaining this awkwardly large, blanket-wrapped figure in the tiny seat.

"Why would you touch my face?" Ren asked after a while.

Hux didn't stop pacing. "Your face is intriguing."

"It could be construed inappropriate and rude," Ren said, sounding more like Hux than himself. "Nonconsensual, even. What makes you think I would like my face touched?"

"I agree," Hux replied. "It was a lapse in judgment. You were sleeping surprisingly peacefully."

"You assume I don't?"

"Do you?"

Kylo Ren stayed quiet for a while and then stood up, swaying a bit and finding his balance with his hand on the backrest of the seat. He was turned to Hux, following with the same feverish look as before as he paced and Hux strove to ignore him. "Not often," he finally said. "Your dreams… helped."

Hux quirked an eyebrow, glancing at Ren.

"They weren't mine," Ren just said with a tiny shrug, pulling the blanket tighter around him. He looked so absolutely ill it made Hux feel wholly uncomfortable, almost physically nauseous: he could have sworn Ren's pale skin was going translucent and he could see the faint lines of veins beneath, eyes sparking fever and exhaustion.

Hux stopped pacing and immediately shielded himself with his arms, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers. "We'll be arriving within minutes," he repeated something he had said some time ago.

"I know." Kylo Ren stepped closer, into Hux's personal space, and that was exactly why he had tried to shield himself, feeling the strange tension in the cockpit, like they were standing between two active ancient tesla coils, electricity humming in the air, hairs standing on ends. Ren just leaned into him briefly, didn't have arms free to embrace Hux with and Hux kept his arms to himself.

The tension snapped like a crack of a whip, electricity filling the cockpit, piercing through them both.

"Whatever happens, I know that you're strong," Ren said, the first time during the tumultuous time they had known each other he had paid anything resembling a compliment to Hux, although Hux didn't really care for words of affirmation: he knew he was strong. He knew he did good work, was effective, intelligent, a good commander fully dedicated to the First Order. He didn't care about the negatives either, how he worked too hard, was cold, curt and unapproachable, too patriotic to sometimes see the bigger picture, too methodical to consider alternatives: too much like Brendol Hux. He didn't care about any of it, about what others thought: as long as he passed his own (his late father's) standards and remained a valuable contributing asset – a weapon to wield – to the Supreme Leader and the First Order nothing else mattered.

Yet words of affirmation from Kylo Ren made the fist in his chest close tighter around his heart: made him experience this _longing_ he didn't know had been there and he wanted to drape his arms around Ren and hold him, keep Kylo Ren _his_ , forever in this small enclosed space just for the two of them, and nothing would ever come between them aside from themselves.

"I know," Hux replied, a slight tinge of irritation in his voice. Feelings he didn't deal with.

"But you're scared," Kylo Ren replied, his lips touching Hux's temple as he spoke, his breath cold. "There is a human under that mask you've perfected over the years, capable of caring about someone you hate so much your heart can't stand it, and that part of you is scared and it needs to be as strong as the rest because Leader Snoke will know."

"You're not helping," Hux said quietly while Kylo Ren cleverly pieced the puzzle together.

"Fear gives me strength," was the reply, a ghost of a kiss against Hux's temple and Kylo Ren walked away just as they pulled out of hyperspace, the stars dots again, a small dark dwarf of a planet spreading below. Hux saw no other ships on the orbit, so it was likely just them in there: rest of the First Order had, following orders, retreated to the secondary base.

He felt abandoned when Kylo Ren was gone, and the cockpit felt suddenly very cold, the chill permeating into his very bones and freezing the marrow and he hoped it would freeze his heart as well so that he could stop giving into distractions and be again the cold efficient machine he was known to be; which was his purpose. He grabbed his greatcoat from the pilot seat, draped it over the backrest again, sat down and brought the shuttle down. He was getting hailed by a frequency that stayed silent during their descent, so he only sent his own personnel code and in reply received coordinates planetside to the Supreme Leader's base. It was underground, the entrance deep in the wall of one of the yawning, jagged chasms carved in the planet's surface and it reminded him uncomfortably of Starkiller just before its death, although the chasms here were deep and dark and not filled with red hot death. He flew inside a shuttle bay, the crude rock walls suddenly smooth dark steel, and he landed amidst technicians and medical staff waiting for their arrival.

He got up, feeling faint, the fear very real, and grabbed his greatcoat before trying not to straight-out stumble out of the cockpit. He made his way through the shuttle rather graciously considering his state of mind, and found Kylo Ren in his blood-stained robes, hood drawn deep over his face in lieu of his missing mask, standing before the ramp about to be lowered. Hux draped the greatcoat over his shoulders, pulled himself to full height and took a deep breath, brushed strands of usually immaculately sculpted red hair back from his forehead. He hadn't had the time to worry about that in a while and somehow it was refreshing to have something familiar to cling to for a change. He could feel Ren look at him with amusement, could hear his breath coming out shallow and labored despite the carefully crafted façade he was putting up.

Just before the ramp lowered with its familiar pneumatic hiss, Kylo Ren's fingers brushed against Hux's. It was very deliberate: he hooked his gloved hand briefly against Hux's, fingertips touching fingertips, and Hux wanted to burst into tears again. The simple touch was the most intimate thing Hux had ever experienced, reassuring in all the ways no word in the world could ever be, and spoke of a connection; secret and forbidden. His spine was liquid fire, heat crackling through him unstable and unpredictable like it did through Ren's stupid lightsaber, and for a blindingly bright moment everything was clear and made sense and it was all _so wrong_ , the fear so real, and Hux hoped he had never started caring in the first place, would have smothered out the distracting spark the moment it had appeared and not fed it in curiosity or the vain hope of finding something long lost or brand new. He would only lose, scared and alone, and where could he draw strength when there was absolutely nothing left: Kylo Ren's hand not in his, Kylo Ren facing forward, about to step out?

The ramp lowered and Ren walked with surprising and likely rehearsed ease down the ramp, striving to hide any evidence of an injury although he was swarmed by the medical staff immediately. He would let them see when there was no one else looking. So needlessly proud, no sign of weakness to take advantage of.

Hux remained in the shuttle, not really in a hurry anywhere, hand over his mouth as he blinked back tears and with frightful clarity realized that it was entirely possible he would never see Kylo Ren again.

 

***

 

The _Finalizer_ hovered above the small planet, the dwarf of a star nearby still a bit too bright through the bridge's large viewports, and Hux turned his face away from it and back to the datapad in his hands, lazily scrolling through the initial scouting reports. It seemed like it could work: he would have to run it through the science division first, consult techs and engineers and then other senior officers whether or not the position was tactically sound and wouldn't lend itself to just another disaster, and finally he would have to talk to the Supreme Leader and maybe, just maybe, after months of searching, they could finally begin the Starkiller project anew. There would be double the amount of Stormtroopers planetside at all times: with the New Republic in shambles they did not need their full military strength anywhere else at the moment, and with the Starkiller destroyed the Supreme Leader was happy to let the resistance – and what remained of New Republic – assume that most of the First Order had perished alongside it. There would be a small fleet hidden a short jump away at all times. They would revise the technology on their shields and make them so that they would reach closer to the planet surface so that no ridiculous ace pilot from the resistance could pull out of hyperspace inside the shield without colliding with the surface immediately. They would install fucking anti-aircraft artillery near the vital parts of the weapon and they would keep the planet on the move after exhausting the dwarf of a star it lazily rotated around. They would come up with technology for atmospheric camouflage to hide the cylinder, since it was huge enough to be visible from the planet's orbit and quite a tell-tale sign to anyone passing by, even by chance.

They would try again. General Hux would do well to see that this time there would be no failures. He had gotten off with a slap on the wrist, reprimands spoken in a soft voice but more scathing and accompanied with a tone more dangerous than anything Brendol Hux had ever said even when he was so disappointed a lesser man would have cried. Hux knew he would not get a second chance: if this failed, he had used up his usefulness and there were already so many people eager and vying to take his place. He was neither irreplaceable nor unique: any senior officer could do what he did: the Supreme Leader's words.

He had disarmed Hux with well-placed words, stricken fear into him to replace the one that already lurked in his heart – still did, just more subdued – and that was it. He left the Supreme Leader's chambers – a large dark room not unlike the holoprojector room back on Starkiller Base. The sides of it, while mostly shrouded in darkness, were lined with almost crude statues that reminded Hux of the very old, Old Republic era Sith artwork, and the Supreme Leader was not a holorpojection large enough to fill the room but a small, lithe man in dark robes with a disfigured and pale, almost alien face, sitting on a throne carved from solid block of black rock – with orders to take Kylo Ren's shuttle and return to the _Finalizer_ , where he would resume his duties as commanding officer in charge of the hopefully quick recommencing of the Starkiller project.

Of Kylo Ren there had been no word since.

Of course it made Hux uneasy: filled his heart with dread and at his weakest moments, after days of no proper sleep and his usual duties pressing in on him and he hoped for a distraction and reprieve, it almost made him grieve, caused him to fall into despair in his quarters or whatever silent and hidden nook or cranny he could find on the ship that teemed with life and personnel who would spread rumors like wildfire if their commanding officer showed any sign of faltering. The longing was an ever-present all-devouring feeling, but he knew better than to let any of it show. He had to be fit to carry on his duties lest the Supreme Leader would deem him unsuitable for his position. To medical personnel his symptoms were those of post-traumatic stress disorder following the destruction of Starkiller and if the Supreme Leader knew any better, he never let Hux know.

"Another scouting party reported in, sir," Captain Phasma stood next to him, holding a datapad in her outstretched hand, and Hux picked it up without saying a word, leaving the Captain to take her leave without an order to do so. Hux flipped through the report without registering a word, and had to return to the beginning and start again when he realized. His concentration was in shambles. Medical had several times suggested he took a day or two off for stress-related reasons. Hux refused every time. The four hours a night had turned into two if he was lucky, and the memory dreams of Brendol Hux into those of hallways again, except this time he was not going anywhere or trying to get out: he was searching, he never knew what exactly, and he was running out of time, which filled the dream with frustration and ominous, growing dread. He woke up more frustrated and exhausted than ever, with the irritating memory of Kylo Ren and his pale features under the black leather of Hux's gloves, that strand of hair that would not stay put.

_You were here_. He got it now. Too little, too late.

 

***

 

An unidentified TIE/fo fighter hailed them that afternoon ship time and Hux's presence was requested on the bridge to help identify the fighter that demanded to get permission to board the _Finalizer._ Hux could not believe his ears when he heard the vocoder over the slightly crackling communications. Impossible. The Supreme Leader would have informed them of this.

"General," the modulated voice said, "would you please tell your people to stop being assholes and let me fly in."

He shouldn't have: the fact that the Supreme Leader was not involved was alarming the least, but since Hux conducted most of their meetings on his lonesome, he could exercise his own judgment considering this particular matter without anyone on the bridge being none the wiser.

The speed with which Hux granted the fighter authorization to approach the _Finalizer_ and dock in one of its fighter bays was remarkable, and the time it took him to stride down the corridors and take hyperlifts to the midsection of the Star Destroyer was just as impressive, and he reached the hangar by the time Kylo Ren was stepping out of the somewhat damaged fighter.

Ren stopped on his tracks, halfway down and Hux halted his steps as well and they regarded each other from almost halfway across the large hangar. Hux's heart was beating hard enough to rob him of his hearing.

Kylo Ren was the first one to move. He hopped down from the fighter, a flurry of black robes – the same as always – and he lowered his hood and reached up to unlatch his mask – that one same as well – and he slowly walked across the hangar to Hux, out of regulation curly hair swept back, pale skin, the chart of dark stars on his face, deep brown deer eyes. The scar on his face had healed and, while unsightly, did not mar anything of what Hux had already found pleasing before: just gave it a new twist. There was no sign of fever in his eyes like the last time, like Hux remembered them with dreadful clarity: instead they looked lively, livelier than before even, less full of conflict, and Hux wasn't sure whether that meant that Kylo Ren had found balance or was just having a good day and he couldn't wait to find out which was it. Ren looked more human, less weapon; more like his own person and less like a monster hiding behind a mask.

"General," Kylo Ren said, bowing his head in a rare display of respect he had never before bothered with.

"Shut up," Hux said. Something inside his chest burst out singing, the fist around his heart – the one that had been there all this time squeezing the life out of it, making every beat hurt – finally let go, let his heart expand and fill the devouring empty void in his chest and he felt like soaring. There was no stopping to question, no hesitation, no second thoughts or consideration and Hux closed the now acceptable distance between Kylo Ren and himself with few long strides and threw his arms over Ren's broad shoulders. With utmost no-grace he smashed his lips against Ren's and did not care about who might see: what the technicians and pilots scurrying over the hangar might think. If they were wise they would ignore.

Kylo Ren's lips were cold, Hux did not know how to kiss, there were weird crashes all around them, as if cargo crates and equipment were toppled over, and after a torturous couple of seconds during which Hux had the time to regret his entire existence, Kylo Ren finally, tentatively and with a small sound Hux construed a sigh – disbelief, relief, happiness – returned the kiss just as clueless as Hux, bringing up his gloved hands to cup Hux's cheeks to hold him close, his thumbs brushing gently against the rises of Hux's cheekbones.

"I'm sorry I have never," Ren tried with a slightly trembling voice into the kiss that was a lot of eager attempt and less actual kiss, but nevertheless reinforced what they both already knew. The crashes continued.

"Neither have I," Hux replied, characteristically irritated, and strove to silence all future attempts of Kylo Ren trying to state the obvious. Hux had never kissed anyone before. He had never met anyone he had particularly wanted to kiss and those he for any one reason found attractive were usually out of his reach. He remembered an older boy from Academy, sixteen or so, hair jet black and eyes blue and clear as ice and then the girl he had gotten caught with and the voice of Brendol Hux speaking of distracting devils and of indolent procrastinations or yawning states, and his son would do well to concentrate on his genius. Hux was no genius no matter how much Brendol Hux hoped, though, but hard work was a very good contender and at that Hux was very good. After that it had been all duty no play and Hux had never found that human contact was something that was missing in his life. Women he found absolutely no interest in. He could take care of urges on his own and preferred it that way. Hux was not surprised if Kylo Ren was the same, which he clearly was, the fumbling and nervous little shuddering breaths against Hux's cheek, like Hux was kissing a boy of sixteen and not a man of thirty, which was not a slight towards Kylo Ren because he was not any better than a boy of sixteen himself either.

"Missed you," Ren managed between kisses that were getting better, more sure, more gratifying; the space between their bodies growing smaller as they pressed against each other, the fine fabric of Hux's uniform against Ren's rough-spun robes, and Hux wondered if they could have had this from the start.

"No," Kylo Ren replied. Yes, they had had to set on that particularly insightful journey, that much was true.

"Don't do that," Hux said.

In answer there was blissful silence, only the kiss and affirmation and freedom to allow himself this after all the lost time and the loneliness; only these black silent waters in which to sink entangled with another built as a bullet, an automatic purpose – and to forget.

**Author's Note:**

> Hard references to "Thrushes" by Ted Hughes are scattered all over the fic, including the title. Consider it a deconstruction or a subversion rather than an "inspired by", if you will.
> 
> Although this leaves a lot of questions unanswered towards the end, I probably won't be writing a sequel or another related fic: the hints are already there, and I'd rather you drew your own conclusions of what happened, why Ren came back, and what will happen next.


End file.
